Snow Day 2025

What was supposed to be a three day weekend has turned into a five day weekend! With the threat of snowy/icy weather, we found out yesterday that school has been cancelled for today and tomorrow in anticipation of snow and freezing temperatures. Sure enough, when we woke up this morning, we found it had snowed. 

Nina wasn't too sure about the snow

The view out of an upstairs window

Our house

Once the boys got up, they were ready to go 'sledding'. We grabbed their body boards and headed to the neighborhood next to ours where there was a hill they could sled down.

Casen pushing Camden 

I tried it too!

Sometimes they ended up very 
close to the water

Casen's snow angel

Snow ball fight

Hopefully the snow was not yellow

After we got home and rested a bit, the boys and Nina went out in the back and threw more snowballs. Apparently, the cold does not bother them . . 

It was nice to have the additional few days off. I was very grateful that, despite the predictions, we did not lose power or have any issues with the freezing temperatures.

Basketball Tournament

Casen is at the age where there is such a wide variety in size amongst the boys. Some have gone through puberty, some are smooth in the middle of it, and others haven't even hit it yet. With him being a June birthday, he generally is one of the youngest (if not the youngest)on his team. Still, he is one of the tallest on his team. As you know, size definitely matters in sports, and I will tell you, some of these teams have boys that must be corn fed! Last week he was matched against a boy at least a head taller than him during the tip off. LOL! Despite having a hard time defending those who are taller, Casen still works hard and plays his heart out.

We had 3 straight days of basketball this past week. On Thursday,  Casen had a home game against Magnolia.

He had extra fans!

Making a free throw

On Friday and Saturday, his team played in a tournament that was held in Klein. The boys won one and lost on Friday night. On Saturday morning, they won their first game against their rival, Tomball Junior High and then lost their second game against their other rival, Grand Lakes. 

The score again Tomball Junior High

With the basketball tournament, Shane, Casen and I were all a bit bummed we couldn't go to the church student weekend retreat again this year. Instead, Camden was able to enjoy himself at the weekend retreat at Camp Cho-Yeh. We dropped him off at the church Friday night before we headed to watch basketball, and then picked him up Sunday afternoon. Despite coming home exhausted, he had a great time! Good thing we all have off tomorrow for MLK day so everyone can catch up on some sleep!

HNW Church Youth

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

This morning Camden participated in a chapter wide YMSL philanthropy event with Sleep in Heavenly Peace. If you are not familiar with the organization, they believe all children deserve a safe, comfortable place to lay their heads. In order to carry out their mission, they build, assemble and deliver beds to children in need. While serving, the boys learned how to build the bunk beds and were able to operate power tools to build the beds. They had a successful morning building 50 beds.  

Some of the Class of 2028 boys

The base of 50 beds

Christmas 2024

I still can't believe Christmas we have celebrated Christmas. The house has been decorated for weeks and all the gifts were bought and wrapped in a timely manner, however for some reason I was not feeling overly festive and jolly (which was really bothering me) as Christmas day was approaching. For the first time since Camden was born, we did not even send out Christmas cards. The boys did not want to decorate cookies for Santa this year, which saddened me because it seems that tradition that I loved so much as a kid and adult seems to have come to an end. :( Truthfully, we don't have many 'family traditions' that the four of us do and I think that has really hit me this season. The boys I and have chatted about this, and with their help, we are going to find something that fits our family that we can look forward to and become our family tradition. Fortunately, after having the Key family Christmas, I started feeling a little more festive, thank goodness.

Our church held candlelight services on both December 23rd and 24th. We opted to attend service on the 23rd. The candlelight service has always been my favorite one to attend. 

On Christmas Eve, aside from making some Christmas goodies to take to the in-laws on Christmas Day, we did not do too much. The boys were forewarned that Santa would not be visiting this year, to which Camden was concerned because, according to him, Santa always brings the good gifts. LOL. I assured him that he would still receive 'the good gifts', so not to worry. The boys did wake up to stockings full of 'exciting' things such as glow-in-the dark pickleballs, chocolate covered cherries, screensavers, and poopourri spray, just to name a few items.

Before getting ourselves together and heading to Lumberton for the day, we all opened our gifts from one another. Camden received several items for his office setup as well as shoes and an Alexa Spot, while Casen received a new XBox with a game, a speaker and an Alexa Spot as well as a few other things. I received several things for Christmas, but my most treasured gifts were a thank you card from each of my boys with the sweetest messages that brought tears to my eyes. 

Nina got gifts too!

Camden was able to add some of the gifts he received to his office set up and Casen got his XBox up and running before we headed to Lumberton to spend the day with Shane's family. Once we arrived to Nana and Poppa's house, we had breakfast for lunch and then we all opened gifts.

The cousins

Ira and Gavin

Malachi

Camden

Casen

Shanelle with her annual calendar

Kelsey and Me

We had fun playing a few rounds of LCR which resulted in Gavin and Camden as the winners!

Camden with his $10 worth of winnings

We had a surprise visitor later in the evening. We had not seen Connor in quite a few years, so it was great to see him and catch up a bit. He even played a few rounds of pop darts with the boys.

The Hood Family

I failed to get a picture of the boys in front of the tree Christmas morning, so snagged one today. Taking a picture of them together is never easy. . . 

I hope everyone had a blessed Christmas season celebrating our Savior's birth and enjoyed time with loved ones.